I remember a Star Trek episode where the plucky crew of the Enterprise stumbled on a race of xenophobes, and the aliens kept erasing the crew's memory while Data tried to help clean up the errant loose ends. Problem was, a few strands were left hanging here and there and the humans, being human, couldn't help but tug at them to find out what they were attached to, which led to the inevitable nearly-fatal hijinks for the entire crew. I think of that show when I think of DUST 514.
DUST will be a fairly major accomplishment if CCP can take the idea they've been cooking since 2008 and get it to decently mesh with Eve. There are probably a fairly huge number of technical issues to deal with, and that doesn't even include the game balancing issues between the two games' populations and complicated market interactions. On one hand, CCP needs to develop slow enough that the ship doesn't sink when they smash the bottle off her nose on launch, but they can't wait too long either lest a fickle FPS crowd loose interest in a prolonged and de-featured beta, and the crowd goes looking for another ship.
I probably have more plans imagined for DUST than CCP does, but that doesn't mean what I hope DUST will be, is what CCP intends DUST to be. For non-Eve players, some of the very generally described game play features inspire a lot of speculation that tends to grate on the already fairly raw nerves of the Eve players, especially the null Eve players. FPS players are pretty jazzed about the ability to actually "claim" in-game resources and land, and that it can still be theirs tomorrow when they log in again. It's something that has only been possible on a very limited scale, and is completely transient in other FPSs. The ability to claim planets and space - sovereignty, is an exciting thing and some of the most vocal DUST players are looking forward to dropping in all over the Eve verse, scooping up planets left and right. Eve players think parts of the rumoured game play will be pretty cool as well, until of course planets and systems in null sec are mentioned. At that point, the nicey-nice, and genial conversation sort of hits the floor. The polite smiles go bye bye.
For non-Eve players, they really don't understand the time and effort involved in claiming space in null. FPS lads think that a few rounds of match play, run over some bunnies, capture a few zone guns, and they're well on the way to grabbing some tasty null sec space. An Eve player really doesn't want to hear about that shit when it takes them days and days to go through the iHub and TCU reinforcement timers, or what happens to the shit they have in the system's outposts. A DUST bunny says "WTF is an iHub and a TCU??" The short answer is, they're a couple of many things that are really going to piss off Eve payers, that's what they are. Eve players need to carry around supplies, plan moves, build ships and mods and ammo and take it with them when they go off to kick someone's ass. They really don't want to hear any bullshit about how DUST bunnies can drop from the sky, like the special snowflakes they are, and start poking gaping holes in their alliance's sovereignty. Eve players don't want to hear about a magic travelling market that goes with the bunnies, everywhere they go, and making their gear on the fly as they drop into the planet zones. Eve players don't want to hear that an alliance might need to go out and get a bunch of PS3s if they want to keep control of their space with the same effort as they do now.
Speculation is always going to be an issue when you have a bunch of gamers as excited as the DUST bunnies seem to be. NDAs, limited game functionality, and cloak and dagger references to game features are lacking just enough detail that they inflame the imaginations of the console players, and inflame other things in the Eve player base. After all, it's not like CCP dropping stupid shit in the lap of the player base is a rare thing. Eve players can do some crazy shit, if there's too much stupid shit. With too little understanding of Eve, the DUST bunnies will dream up some really optimistic, pro-console game play, and that already isn't very popular with Eve players, especially in null sec. With too little info on DUST, Eve players are going to dream up some really pessimistic pro-console game play, and that is not going to make integration any more acceptable with Eve payers.
Eve players are already on a bit of a short fuse and all the recent ship balancing and eye candy is helping a little, but I don't think it's really taken the heat off of the Eve pressure cooker a whole lot, especially with the null crowd. DUST is no where ready to come out of the oven yet, and there are so many aspects of the game that haven't even been tested or seen yet, it's got to be well into next year before they even think about an open beta, if they're smart. There are a lot of fancy games that have just come out, or are going to be released soon. Maybe CCP is being smart and they're waiting for the smoke to clear a little from titles that might be too close to DUST, like Planetside 2, MWO, Hawken and Halo. The longer CCP waits, the better the game will be, but the longer they wait, the more tired the enthusiasts will be of grinding the same beta content and over-speculating about features that that could be years away from implementation. I think CCP needs to start adding more little bits and pieces, a little more often, or people aren't going to be around in the months ahead that I think it'll take to test out even the most basic planet-taking features. I'd hate to be the guy planning the release date. While CCP claims that the nature of Eve's and DUST's game play connection is such that either game could survive without the other, it would be a real shame to see the incredible potential of DUST, roll over and sink to the bottom on launch.
Showing posts with label CCP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CCP. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Pay to win, CCP, A-OK!
With DUST nearly ready to come out of the oven (supposedly), and its future reliance on RMT for CCP income, I got to thinking about pay to win.
I've always been of the opinion that pay to win was already in the game, and was easy to see and use from the first few days of me playing Eve. I'm talking about PLEX. You can train skill points at the same rate as the next guy, but if neither of you has earned enough ISK to buy the item/module/ship you'd like to or need to, the person who can buy a PLEX will get a jump start that the other poorer player might not be able to afford. If you both can train cybernetics skill up to be able to use level 5 implants, but neither can afford them, the player who can sell a couple PLEX for the ISK to buy the set will get, and keep, a permanent advantage over the player who had to grind out the ISK, in-game, the hard way. At any rate, I found it curious how so many people lost their shit when rumours of special boats and "golden" ammo were floating around. Curiously limited scope of view, they had, thought I.
So, what got me thinking was a while ago when CCP had 100 wicked awesome video cards that they were "giving away" for 20 PLEX each, to the first 100 people that showed up. This is from well back in the spring, so no news flash here, but I have a "life" (TM) so often some of the meta content/bullshit gets back-burnered til more off-peak mental load times arrive. So anyway, for 20 PLEX, or a little over $300, you could have gotten one of these ~$250 (retail) video cards if you jumped at the offer in the less than 2 minutes it took to sell them out. It's also important to keep in mind that no company is going to pay, or going to be required to pay, full price from a video card company when they take 100 of them. So how much did CCP pay for the cards? $200? $150? Less? Cleverness on the part of CCP to accept PLEX that players have bought off them, watch as the PLEX prices raised for a period of time as 2000 PLEX were removed from the game, their price in isk rose, which sucked even more isk out of Eve than the amount used to buy the PLEX for the video cards, and then make a tidy profit on the video cards that they got from the manufacturer for a (probably) huge discount in the first place. So, rich players can convert ISK/PLEX into a video card without breaking a sweat, , not to mention CCP selling even more PLEX to fill the hole left by the 2000 used for the video cards. If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is.
Then, there was the alliance tournament. Again, PLEX was the currency of choice instead of ISK because CCP said it's "just easier to manage and allows us to create some revenue to fund this and future tournaments". Players pay the bill to run the tournament . . for the players, but not all the players, only the ones who could pony up at least 10 PLEX for the first 32 auction slots, and then another 10 PLEX for the last 32 random draw slots. 640 PLEX guaranteed, ~$10,000 US, and word is/was, that there were some pretty epic bids by the richest alliances to guarantee their slots. 1,000+ PLEX is likely a more accurate guess as to how many were bid or used for tournament slots. Maybe considerably more than that. Likely considerably more. Soaks up a lot of that ISK in an ISK-flooded economy and CCP gets paid twice. Once when the PLEX were bought, and the 2nd time when new PLEX were bought to replace the ones burnt up for the tournament. CCP could have accepted ISK in lieu of PLEX, but ISK isn't worth shit to CCP when they can get the players, the rich ones, to cough up $150+ per team. So, really, could any alliance have entered, or just the ones with the money to pay to win?
Now, there's the New Eden Open tournament. Again, PLEX are the entrance currency. LOTS of PLEX. This time it's 20 PLEX for the minimum bid, so like $300 per team, more expensive than the last one, but in the end, the absolute minimum of PLEX down the pipe, taken out of the game, is 640. I think it would be very safe to assume that with $10,0000 in prizes, bids will be even more epic than tournament ten. That's at LEAST $10,000 US that the players will take out of the game economy and gave BACK to CCP. Huge ISK sink for the richest players in Eve, good for CCP sopping up more ISK from the game, getting funded by their own customers, twice, like before, and the anti "golden ammo" crowd aren't saying a word.
Word was, one of the CCP devs said that all the PLEX that were confiscated from the banned RMT and macro/bot accounts were going to be put back into the economy. No number was put on the PLEX that have been confiscated, nor was there any mention of how CCP was going to put the PLEX back into the economy. Now, the new word is that confiscated PLEX will be given away in the tournament. Not back to the general customer base who would appreciate the extra PLEX reducing the cost of the ever climbing PLEX prices due to the FW ISK fountain-fuck-up, pumping out more ISK than every high sec incursion in the game ever did. So the richest players are the ones with the highest chance of getting some PLEX back who can use them or sell them at inflated prices due to the high PLEX demand. Pay to win?
Now, CCP says that the PLEX entry fees are also to help pay for the logistics and costs of setting up and running the tournament. Well, the way they're doing it, yeah, it'll piss a bunch of money up against the wall, but rest assured, CCP will make out like bandits just like they did with the $300 they were charging for the video cards they got for less than $250. Considering that the MINIMUM amount of money players will pay CCP to enter their tournament is $10,000, there are very simple ways for CCP to cut costs if they really want to, and it won't compromise tournament coverage.
They don't need commentators to be taken to Iceland. CCP needs to Google existing tech like Skype and USB video cameras. Plug a Skype conference call and video feed into their little alliance tournament screen and no one needs to be IN Iceland. The software and studio are set up, but all that's needed is to plug the audio and video into the tournament display and their job is done. They can rent their "studio" out to the Icelandic shopping channel or something. The cost of the tourney is reduced, more people can enter and/or entrance fees can be dropped to include non-rich alliances.
So, are the players dumber than chickens that they don't see the pay to win? Or is the anti-pay-to-win crowd silent because the common rabble are kept in their place? If pay-to-win is modest and accessible by almost all the player base, apparently, Eve players lost, and will lose, their shit. BUT, if pay-to-win is only accessible by a small minority of the richest players and alliances in the game, apparently, pay-to-win is A-OK. I guess CCP and the "right kind" of players understand that when everyone is super, no one is super, and that, like in real life, is not acceptable.
I've always been of the opinion that pay to win was already in the game, and was easy to see and use from the first few days of me playing Eve. I'm talking about PLEX. You can train skill points at the same rate as the next guy, but if neither of you has earned enough ISK to buy the item/module/ship you'd like to or need to, the person who can buy a PLEX will get a jump start that the other poorer player might not be able to afford. If you both can train cybernetics skill up to be able to use level 5 implants, but neither can afford them, the player who can sell a couple PLEX for the ISK to buy the set will get, and keep, a permanent advantage over the player who had to grind out the ISK, in-game, the hard way. At any rate, I found it curious how so many people lost their shit when rumours of special boats and "golden" ammo were floating around. Curiously limited scope of view, they had, thought I.
So, what got me thinking was a while ago when CCP had 100 wicked awesome video cards that they were "giving away" for 20 PLEX each, to the first 100 people that showed up. This is from well back in the spring, so no news flash here, but I have a "life" (TM) so often some of the meta content/bullshit gets back-burnered til more off-peak mental load times arrive. So anyway, for 20 PLEX, or a little over $300, you could have gotten one of these ~$250 (retail) video cards if you jumped at the offer in the less than 2 minutes it took to sell them out. It's also important to keep in mind that no company is going to pay, or going to be required to pay, full price from a video card company when they take 100 of them. So how much did CCP pay for the cards? $200? $150? Less? Cleverness on the part of CCP to accept PLEX that players have bought off them, watch as the PLEX prices raised for a period of time as 2000 PLEX were removed from the game, their price in isk rose, which sucked even more isk out of Eve than the amount used to buy the PLEX for the video cards, and then make a tidy profit on the video cards that they got from the manufacturer for a (probably) huge discount in the first place. So, rich players can convert ISK/PLEX into a video card without breaking a sweat, , not to mention CCP selling even more PLEX to fill the hole left by the 2000 used for the video cards. If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is.
Then, there was the alliance tournament. Again, PLEX was the currency of choice instead of ISK because CCP said it's "just easier to manage and allows us to create some revenue to fund this and future tournaments". Players pay the bill to run the tournament . . for the players, but not all the players, only the ones who could pony up at least 10 PLEX for the first 32 auction slots, and then another 10 PLEX for the last 32 random draw slots. 640 PLEX guaranteed, ~$10,000 US, and word is/was, that there were some pretty epic bids by the richest alliances to guarantee their slots. 1,000+ PLEX is likely a more accurate guess as to how many were bid or used for tournament slots. Maybe considerably more than that. Likely considerably more. Soaks up a lot of that ISK in an ISK-flooded economy and CCP gets paid twice. Once when the PLEX were bought, and the 2nd time when new PLEX were bought to replace the ones burnt up for the tournament. CCP could have accepted ISK in lieu of PLEX, but ISK isn't worth shit to CCP when they can get the players, the rich ones, to cough up $150+ per team. So, really, could any alliance have entered, or just the ones with the money to pay to win?
Now, there's the New Eden Open tournament. Again, PLEX are the entrance currency. LOTS of PLEX. This time it's 20 PLEX for the minimum bid, so like $300 per team, more expensive than the last one, but in the end, the absolute minimum of PLEX down the pipe, taken out of the game, is 640. I think it would be very safe to assume that with $10,0000 in prizes, bids will be even more epic than tournament ten. That's at LEAST $10,000 US that the players will take out of the game economy and gave BACK to CCP. Huge ISK sink for the richest players in Eve, good for CCP sopping up more ISK from the game, getting funded by their own customers, twice, like before, and the anti "golden ammo" crowd aren't saying a word.
Word was, one of the CCP devs said that all the PLEX that were confiscated from the banned RMT and macro/bot accounts were going to be put back into the economy. No number was put on the PLEX that have been confiscated, nor was there any mention of how CCP was going to put the PLEX back into the economy. Now, the new word is that confiscated PLEX will be given away in the tournament. Not back to the general customer base who would appreciate the extra PLEX reducing the cost of the ever climbing PLEX prices due to the FW ISK fountain-fuck-up, pumping out more ISK than every high sec incursion in the game ever did. So the richest players are the ones with the highest chance of getting some PLEX back who can use them or sell them at inflated prices due to the high PLEX demand. Pay to win?
Now, CCP says that the PLEX entry fees are also to help pay for the logistics and costs of setting up and running the tournament. Well, the way they're doing it, yeah, it'll piss a bunch of money up against the wall, but rest assured, CCP will make out like bandits just like they did with the $300 they were charging for the video cards they got for less than $250. Considering that the MINIMUM amount of money players will pay CCP to enter their tournament is $10,000, there are very simple ways for CCP to cut costs if they really want to, and it won't compromise tournament coverage.
They don't need commentators to be taken to Iceland. CCP needs to Google existing tech like Skype and USB video cameras. Plug a Skype conference call and video feed into their little alliance tournament screen and no one needs to be IN Iceland. The software and studio are set up, but all that's needed is to plug the audio and video into the tournament display and their job is done. They can rent their "studio" out to the Icelandic shopping channel or something. The cost of the tourney is reduced, more people can enter and/or entrance fees can be dropped to include non-rich alliances.
So, are the players dumber than chickens that they don't see the pay to win? Or is the anti-pay-to-win crowd silent because the common rabble are kept in their place? If pay-to-win is modest and accessible by almost all the player base, apparently, Eve players lost, and will lose, their shit. BUT, if pay-to-win is only accessible by a small minority of the richest players and alliances in the game, apparently, pay-to-win is A-OK. I guess CCP and the "right kind" of players understand that when everyone is super, no one is super, and that, like in real life, is not acceptable.
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